The Miracle of Waiting

John 11:1-44

Effects of mastery and coping rehearsal on competitive state anxiety

The effectiveness of mastery and coping rehearsal strategies on lowering competitive state anxiety prior to a gymnastic skill performance was assessed. [This is an excerpt from the abstract. For the complete abstract, please see the document.

Sustainability and Parliaments: Survey and Perspectives RIO +20. Summary

At the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, countries committed themselves to sustainable action. Since then, structures and processes have been modified in politics and administration worldwide, and new bodies and procedures have been created. So far, these changes have mostly been carried out by the executive. The TAB report sheds light for the first time on the contribution of parliaments to sustainable action. To this end, it describes the activities of the German Bundestag and the parliaments of the Länder with regard to constructive participation in shaping national sustainability policy, as well as providing an overview of the activities of the parliaments of other Länder. It becomes clear that the legislatures also launched corresponding institutional and procedural innovations. However, this alone is not enough. Further continuous parliamentary learning processes are also necessary if parliaments want to play a more active role in sustainability policy. The TAB report pays special attention to the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development of the German Bundestag, which was established in 2004. With its objectives and working methods, it plays a pioneering role in international comparison. In spite of its acknowledged good work, there are many opportunities to better integrate the guiding principle of sustainable development into the political processes of the German Bundestag on an ongoing basis. The TAB report offers substantial information and a variety of suggestions in this regard

Using Abstraction in Modular Verification of Synchronous Adaptive Systems

Self-adaptive embedded systems autonomously adapt to changing environment conditions to improve their functionality and to increase their dependability by downgrading functionality in case of fail- ures. However, adaptation behaviour of embedded systems significantly complicates system design and poses new challenges for guaranteeing system correctness, in particular vital in the automotive domain. Formal verification as applied in safety-critical applications must therefore be able to address not only temporal and functional properties, but also dynamic adaptation according to external and internal stimuli. In this paper, we introduce a formal semantic-based framework to model, specify and verify the functional and the adaptation behaviour of syn- chronous adaptive systems. The modelling separates functional and adap- tive behaviour to reduce the design complexity and to enable modular reasoning about both aspects independently as well as in combination. By an example, we show how to use this framework in order to verify properties of synchronous adaptive systems. Modular reasoning in com- bination with abstraction mechanisms makes automatic model checking efficiently applicable

Stoichiometry relaxation in oxides with mobile oxygen vacancies, protons and holes: Temperature dependence and trapping effects

Materials with three mobile carriers (oxygen vacancies, protons, holes) are of interest as cathode materials for proton-conducting ceramic fuel cells. The incorporation of protons into such mixed-conducting oxides can occur by acid-base hydration of oxygen vacancies as well as by hydrogen uptake.[1,2] Depending on conditions, one-fold or two-fold conductivity relaxation after pH2O steps is observed.[2-6] Exact analytical relations for these processes were derived in ref. [2]. For a complete description four diffusion coefficients are required, comprising direct as well as indirect terms. The complex non-monotonic kinetic behavior is related to the fact that in a three carrier system the electroneutrality condition does not lead to a simple coupling between the carrier fluxes. Numerical simulations for a wide range of materials and conditions are presented.[2,6] They allow us to identify the conditions for the transition from one-fold to two-fold relaxation, and give a natural explanation for the moving boundary phenomenon observed in ref. [3]. The simulations also show that the assignment of the temperature dependence of the effective diffusivities for acceptor-doped (Ba,Sr)(Zr,Ce)O3-d perovskites (large set of experimental data compiled in [7]) is far from trivial. When the transference number of oxygen vacancies exceeds that of the protons, the faster of the two effective diffusivities approaches the oxygen chemical diffusion coefficient, not the hydrogen chemical diffusivity as one might expect intuitively. Furthermore, the effect of trapping reactions on the relaxation kinetics is investigated. [1] D. Poetzsch, R. Merkle, J. Maier, Faraday Discussions 182 (2015) 129 [2] D. Poetzsch, R. Merkle, J. Maier, Adv. Funct. Mater. 25 (2015) 1542 [3] J. H. Yu, J. S. Lee, J. Maier, Angew. Chem. Int.Ed. 46 (2007) 8992; Solid State Ionics 181 (2010) 154 [4] H. I. Yoo, J. Y. Yoon, J. S. Ha, C. E. Lee, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 10 (2008) 974 [5] E. Kim, H. I. Yoo, Solid State Ionics 252 (2013) 132 [6] R. Merkle, R. Zohourian, J. Maier, Solid State Ionics (2016) doi:10.1016/j.ssi.2015.12.011 [7] G. R. Kim, H. H. Seo, J. M. Jo, E. C. Shin, J. H. Yu, J. S. Lee, Solid State Ionics 272 (2015) 6

Die Imitatation von bedeutungslosen Armgesten nach unilateraler Hirnschädigung

Die fehlerhafte Imitation von Gesten ist ein wichtiges Merkmal von Apraxie. In der Studie wurde die Imitation bedeutungsloser Armgesten untersucht. Dabei wurden räumliche und zeitliche Bewegungsaspekte betrachtet und ihre Zusammenhänge zu Apraxie-Kriterien. Es wurden 11 Patienten mit Schädigungen der sprach-dominanten linken Hemisphäre und mit unterschiedlich schwerer Apraxie untersucht; des weiteren 10 Patienten mit rechtshemisphärischen Schädigungen und insgesamt 20 gesunde Kontrollpersonen. Die Probanden sollten Armgesten imitieren. Zur Standardisierung der Präsentation wurden den Probanden Videoclips der Gestendemonstration gezeigt, bei dem der Untersucher in Originalgröße wiederholt Figuren vor seinem Körper "in die Luft zeichnete". Die Bewegungen sollten jeweils nach Beendigung der Vorführung einer Figur mit der nicht-paretischen Hand imitiert werden. Die Bewegungen wurden mit einem Bewegungsmesssystem registriert und analysiert. Da die Demonstration ebenso registriert wurde, konnten die resultierenden Bewegungsparameter direkt mit der Vorgabe verglichen werden. Es zeigte sich, dass es fast allen Probanden gelang, die Figuren in ihrer Grundstruktur erkennbar zu imitieren. Jedoch wiesen linkshemisphärisch geschädigte Patienten nicht nur hypothesengemäß die größten Veränderungen der räumlichen, sondern auch der zeitlichen Bewegungsparameter auf. Die Veränderungen korrelierten nicht mit Apraxie-Kriterien. Auch rechtsseitig geschädigte Patienten agierten in moderater Form fehlerhaft. Es wird eine maßgebliche Beteiligung der linken Hemisphäre für räumliche und auch für zeitliche Bewegungsaspekte, sowie die Koordination beider Bewegungsfaktoren, vermutet. Möglicherweise kam es zu einer Kaschierung apraktischer Bewegungsstörungen, indem eine Darstellung der Figuren über das semantische Gedächtnis erfolgte. Eine mangelnde Kenntnis über die Relation der Körperglieder zueinander, die möglicherweise bei Handgesten die Bewegungsausführung beeinträchtigt, scheint bei Armgesten nicht vorrangig zu sein. Möglicherweise erleichtert die wiederholte Vorführung der Armbewegungen die Bewegungsausführung durch einen vereinfachten Aufbau im Arbeitsgedächtnis

What happens during a blackout: Consequences of a prolonged and wide-ranging power outage

Power outages in Europe and North America in recent years have given a lasting impression of the vulnerability of modern and high-tech societies. Although the power supply was interrupted for a week at most and only locally, massive functional and supply disruptions, threats to public order and damage amounting to billions of euros have already become apparent. This book shows what consequences a prolonged and widespread power blackout could have on society and its critical infrastructures and how Germany is prepared for such a large-scale disaster. By means of comprehensive consequence analyses, the authors drastically demonstrate that after only a few days, the supply of the population with (vital) goods and services can no longer be guaranteed in the affected area. It is also made clear that considerable efforts are required to increase the sustainability of critical infrastructures and to further optimise the capacities of the national disaster management system. The book is based on TAB Report Nr. 141 "Gefährdung und Verletzbarkeit moderner Gesellschaften - am Beispiel eines großräumigen und langandauernden Ausfalls der Stromversorgung"